Shark Tales Grow With The Telling

The Normal Migration Of Sharks Off Florida's Gulf Coast Has Stirred Up The Media More Than Anyone Else.

Time magazine proclaimed it "The Summer of the Shark." The Discovery Channel is featuring "Shark Week!"

And this week CNN added to the media feeding frenzy by broadcasting the image of hundreds of the predators swarming off the Gulf Coast.

In Florida, it's all sharks all the time.

A rash of gruesome shark attacks -- covered breathlessly by the media -- have fueled the most intense public fascination with the creatures since Jaws, the movie that defined our fear of being eaten alive, more than 25 years ago.

But despite all the attention, experts insist, there have not been more shark attacks than usual this year. And shark populations in Florida are not skyrocketing.

"People want to know what's happening here," said Bob Hueter, director of the world's largest shark-research center, at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota. "But the truth is, it's really just a normal year."

The large concentrations of sharks spotted last week near Tarpon Springs, and two days later near Sarasota, are schools of blacktip sharks, among the most-common species in Florida and worldwide. The only thing unusual is that they appear to be starting their migration south to the Florida Keys a little earlier than typical, Hueter said.

It's not exactly news that there are a lot of sharks in the Gulf waters.

"That's pretty much why they decided to locate the lab here 45 years ago," Hueter said.

It was only a combination of unusually good weather and water conditions last week that made the sharks so visible and such good television video.

RARE EVENTS RIVET ATTENTION

In any case, reaction to the events of the past few weeks may say more about human nature than shark behavior.

There would have been little interest even in a gathering of so many sharks if not for the horrifying events of recent weeks in Pensacola and the Bahamas.

In early July, 8-year-old Jessie Arbogast was playing in shallow water on a Pensacola beach when a 61/2-foot bull shark attacked him, tearing off his arm as he screamed for help. His uncle pulled the shark to shore, where it was killed, and the boy's severed arm was reattached. Jessie returned to his home in Mississippi last week, but he remains in a light coma.

Even as Jessie's struggle to survive remained almost daily national news, 36-year-old Krishna Thompson, a Wall Street banker on vacation in Freeport, Bahamas, was attacked in early August by a shark that shredded his leg, which had to be amputated.

And on Thursday, a second American was flown to Miami for medical treatment after he was bitten near Freeport.

MORE PEOPLE IN THE WATER

Why have the attacks increased this year? They haven't.

The International Shark Attack File, which is compiled by a partnership of research organizations and maintained at the Florida Museum of Natural History in Gainesville, confirmed 79 unprovoked attacks worldwide last year.

So far this year, a spokeswoman said Friday, researchers had confirmed 33 attacks worldwide.

Florida reported 34 attacks last year. So far this year, there have been 16.

That's not to say that Floridians have no reason to fear sharks. Ever since records have been kept, Florida has been the No. 1 location in the world for shark attacks. Volusia County has recorded more attacks -- usually minor bites -- than anywhere in the world. And the number of attacks has been steadily on the rise for years.

Is that because there are more sharks in the water? Experts don't think so.

"There's no evidence that their populations have grown much," said Gary Violetta, curator of fishes at SeaWorld Orlando. "The fact is that shark fisheries are still in a state of collapse."

Sharks are slow to mature and produce relatively few offspring, Violetta said. That makes them susceptible to overfishing and means it could be generations, if ever, before their populations recover.

But the aerial video of hundreds of sharks feeding along the shore of Anclote Key last week was enough to convince viewers that Florida was being overrun by man-eaters.

They didn't hang around long.

In Siesta Key, where the sharks were last spotted Thursday, a green flag fluttered over Jim Trickovic's lifeguard station Friday morning, signaling that the water was safe for swimming.

That did not stop sunbathers from trekking across the sheer white sands to check with Trickovic, just to be sure.

"Even before I got the flag up,'' said the Sarasota County lifeguard, "people were asking me about the sharks."

But they were gone, eluding the helicopters loaded with frustrated biologists and camera crews.

So if the science shows there are fewer sharks in the water, why has the number of attacks grown in recent decades?

It's because there are more people.

Researchers who compile the shark-attack file have for years noted the correlation between growing populations of people and increasing attacks.

"There are more and more and more people coming down to our beaches, so you have to expect that there will be more attacks," Violetta said.